A Virgin's Liberation
by annanabanana
Summary: A schmaltzy Bella & Edward story replete with sidesaddle horseback riding and quivering... oh, just read it. Rated M for all the good reasons. Written for ilsuocantante's Birthday. It's supposed to be Harlequin-esque.


**a/n: Ohai, girls and... boys?  
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**This is a silly little thing I wrote for my kwalla, ilsuocantante. Which I'm sure you already know I wrote for you because of your super-sleuth skills, aka my iphone is, in fact, quite a bit smarter than me. I didn't technically lie; I just omitted. Forgive? I hope you have a very happy Birthday mah h00r. I wish I could give you special berfday snuggs, but alas, the universe has played a cruel joke via our locales. The following story is an attempt at something, hopefully, a little schmaltzy, cheesy or Harlequin-esque. Btdubs, it is long as fuck. Sorry, I'm a wordy betch.**

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Fumbling with the buttons at my throat, I tromped across the icy, brittle green expanse rolling toward my temporary, cherished escape. My fingers worked to close my bodice as I huffed a visible breath across my shoulder in the general direction of my vexation; it eddied into the surrounding mist, as impotent as my fists buffeting iron, my words hurling at him. Charles Swan, my father. Incensed flames flared with my blood, still, licking at the skin of my cheeks, threatening to ignite my fury. An enraged burn, eating through my viscera and erupting out of my neatly-clad slender form to explode in a blast of sparks and fire. That insufferable man, begetter or no, did not deserve my acquiescence any longer. No more would I submit to his will, gifting my unwavering obedience, from this day forward. I had apprised him of this most important alteration in our pattern this very morning while the hens still lay in roost and Apollo's four horses were not yet bridled. I had been resolute and sure and steadfast.

Charles Swan, progenitor of my very being, eyes wide and hands propped against his belt, had howled a booming, condescending guffaw in my face. He had gasped and panted and wheezed. Gusting from his maw, clammy, fetid air had freckled my anger-red cheeks with a dusting of patronizing spittle. I had wished, momentarily, for an occlusion of his throat, perhaps gibbet dealt.

The indignant tension in my chest released in minute increments as my feet carried me ever closer to my sanctuary, my haven. Gripping the cumbersome, rough-hewn door, I wrenched it ajar aggressively with equal parts unnecessary force and incendiary ire. Immediately, I clenched my fists, growled loudly and took the Lord's name in vain. An imposing sliver of oak pierced my flesh, penetrating my finger painfully. This day had barely become an ember on the horizon, and I already desired desperately to scrabble under my bed linens and hide away from the remainder of my morose existence; the manor was his domain, though, not mine.

The stable beckoned me forth with its dank chill and the stale swirl of oats, hay and the red clay earth in my nostrils. Even as a clumsy young girl, this was the essence of myself, my freedom, the scent of well-tended horse stalls and the cold fog of my breath bolstering me. I enjoyed my solitude and the powerful animals whose trust I toiled with endless effort to earn. This was my domain, my realm. Here, I was free.

Blank faces of the suitors darkening my doorstep at my father's behest flashed through my mind, boiling my blood again. I didn't truly accuse them, though I was more often quite wretched than not. Sweet Jasper Whitlock only called because his family desired he marry well, and everyone could see he was wholly smitten with little Mary Alice Brandon, the poor cobbler's daughter. Emmett McCarty was jovial and bawdy, often making me titter behind my gloved hand, but he clearly housed enough oats to sow a Spring planting, slaving all over town to ensure it was plentiful. Then there was the true thorn in my side, Michael Newton. He was a nice enough boy, though he was nearly illiterate, and he was taken with me. My father was taken with his trust, and I was apparently the roast suckling on a platter. Mostly, I desired nothing more than for them all to just go away. I never gave much consideration to boys, and nothing changed when they morphed into men. More than a man or boy, I wanted a good horse, pleasant weather, a good book and a warm fire.

Simmering with resurgent irritation, I stroked Her Royal Highness Princess Rosalie's long nose as she nickered softly. She was fiesty and strong-willed, never tolerating a hand other than my own, and while I enjoyed a battle of wills, I had endured more than my fair share for this day. She would not proffer the relaxing ride I so anxiously sought, so I reached out a handful of oats to her before turning to another stall. I desired meditation, a balm for my taut nerves.

Wise golden brown eyes peered out at me from a golden coat, and I settled my hand on the velvety bridge of his nose. My oldest, most trusted companion, Commodore Sir Carlisle. I smiled softly as I remembered selecting such proud, regal names for my horses when I was a much younger girl with the confidence only youthful naïveté can offer.

Ritualistically, I savored the preparations for our ride, putting on the bridle, checking his hooves and shoes, brushing his coat. I carefully placed the padding and saddle, tightening the girth slowly. I adjusted my stirrup iron, then led the stoic creature out into the glistening light of early morning. Gathering my skirts into position, I mounted the saddle with lithe grace. Riding was the only activity in which I felt anything other than ungainly. I settled my rear into the well-worn leather, hooked my right knee over the highest pommel and smoothed the bunched fabric of my skirt. Carlisle's eye rolled nervously back toward me, his ears twitching agitatedly. A tingle surged under my skin, prickled the hair on my neck. I turned swiftly in my seat to peer back through the gaping, dark hollow of the stable door. Unable to see beyond the foot of weak light pushing into the space past the frame, I concluded everything was in order. Not a wayward whinny warned my ears to be concerned, and I admonished myself for behaving like such a foolish girl. The quiet stablehand would be about his chores in moments if he weren't already attending to them.

Because Carlisle was exceedingly compliant, I merely clucked my tongue to signal him forward, and I was free... for a while.

I paced the even-tempered horse along the rolling green slope to the verdant forest beyond. Following a beaten path, we moved through a bouyant trot into a lazy run, and the tempest of hair whipping around my face tickled and caressed, a lover's fingers. I rode for miles in vast circular patterns traced amongst the plush green trees, teeming with sounds and scents and life all partially revealed, yet mostly shrouded in shadows and fantastical mystery. I longed to suppose my life was akin to this forest, an unknown outcome born of intrigue and chance, and while I was submerged within its leafy curtains I almost did.

As we veered onto a clearer path, I urged the relaxed steed into a canter again and then a gallop. Tearing past the mass of emerald, exhilarated by the chill damp air, I felt a gradual burn begin in the muscles of my thighs, my behind, and I straightened my spine to tilt my hips more securely into my saddle. Sound rushed as water past my ears and in them, as the flicker shifted into a spark of white heat low in my belly and a heavy, aching pulse between my legs. Carlisle leapt swiftly over a fallen tree; my muscles tensed, bracing myself, and the sensation of soaring above the forest floor while my leaden legs grounded me to the worn leather was as if I were dreaming of flying.

Moments after his hooves rejoined the loamy soil underfoot, plump raindrops began landing on me. I scowled up to the heavens, begging a pardon for whichever transgression had garnered me such a horribly unlucky day, and turned my mount quickly back in the direction of the stable. As I rode, the unforgiving sky continued its damnable deluge, wetness seeping into my riding habit and stringing my hair in ropey tendrils. Eventually, I was blinking and spluttering and irate. I did not deserve this; after all else, this was truly unfair.

I dashed Carlisle forthwith beyond the stable door frame, ducking to avoid the lintel and muttering crossly about all of my contemptible luck. Angrily, I continued to grouse to the back of my horse's ears, watching them twitch and shift and turn as he absorbed to my tirade. The burn in my belly was tickling up my ribs, and the throbbing pulse between my legs was insistent and slightly uncomfortable. Tension knotted up through my chest, tightening my lungs. Flushed and angry, I felt starved for air as I scrabbled for the buttons at my neck. I unhoused them frantically, stopping only when the fabric had fallen open to reveal the top of my riding corset. Huge breaths of air panted and pushed from my heaving bosom, calming the constriction in my chest.

In the furthest periphery of my vision, I caught a furtive movement and, delivering a bloodcurdling shriek, I wrenched the reins tightly in my hands. My cry and sharp tug spooked Carlisle so that he reared nervously, hooves pounding red clay-dirt. An agile form danced quickly to his side and reached to steady the horse while verdant forest green filled my vision. I had always thought green a cool shade, but this unwavering gaze only fed the desirous burn in my belly. Confused, mortified and still quite wroth with the universe, I glared into the mysterious green forest captured inside two bright, glimmering orbs.

"Stablehand! Never do that again. You could have seen me crushed on the floor for the startle you gave!" My tone was harsh and castigating.

"I apologize, Miss. Bringing you harm is farthest from my intentions." His tone was rich, layered thick and supple, the springy cushion of loam to compliment the life in his eyes; he glanced down shamefully.

"Well, then, assist me down." I demanded.

Without an utterance, he moved to place one hand on my waist and held the other out for me to grasp in mine. The moment the warm pressure of his touch enveloped my side, the dancing fire and throbbing pulse within me quickened and heightened. My fingers quaked with the wracking shiver his touch invoked as my hand met his. I was sure he perceived my trembling, and I risked a glance up into his mossy eyes to find them surveying me fervently.

I longed to tear my eyes away demurely, as a lady should, but they were too taken with his elegant brow to comply. I had known this man for years, since I was a gangly girl, stomping mud castles, and he a man-child, pulling braids, but never truly seen him, never heard the dulcet timbre of his voice, never felt his eyes raking across my body, his hands grazing my skin. I had not known him.

As I steadied on my own two feet, he respectfully withdrew his hand, and a small painful sob escaped my throat as a constricting lump settled there. Completely aghast at my inability to marry my mind's directions to my body's reactions, my spine bristled, and my shoulders shifted backward.

"Stablehand, un-saddle my horse." His eyes traveled up from my bust, which I realized with chagrin was quite exposed, and he nodded.

"Yes, Miss." He turned, guiding my horse away, and for some indescribable reason I was bereft at his distance.

"Stablehand," I called imperiously.

He turned to me, patience and something much more intense drawing his face; his lips curved into a slight smile before uttering, "Yes, Miss?" and they were precisely the same words as the last, yet hot green burned in his eyes and my belly.

"Be sure to run up the iron." I did not doubt he would without my prodding, but I rather enjoyed dictating commands to this beautiful creature. He broached no dissent, always submitting. I savored the sense of power with which he imbued me; a power I could not harness over my own person. Control. I had never pondered much in the past over his commitment to me, but I realized now he was bestowing faith and trust in me. And I realized his eyes invited me to ask him for more and more and ever more.

Observing him intently, I stood in place. His gentle, expert hands worked quickly but without haste. The muscles in his arms, barely visible beyond the cuffed sleeves of his simple cream colored shirt, bulged and flexed as he worked. I stepped closer, drawing in deep breaths of sweet hay mixed with the subtleties of saturated forest. A scent I fancied was him. As he finished moving the saddle and padding from the horse, I stepped ever closer.

"Stablehand?" I waited for his attention, and it did not disappoint. Igniting such heat within me, I felt the air disintigrate in fiery fingers from my lungs, breathless. "Brush my horse's coat," I demanded, receiving a flash, a spark in return.

"Yes, Miss," his lips curled again as his head dipped out of vision behind the horse.

A silly surge of giddiness flooded my brain when he reappeared with a brush. His hand made long, languid passes across the velvety coat, gently stroking a slow rhythm. I inched forward, and although he must have thought it curiously abnormal for me to stand there, doing nothing but watching him, he showed no indications of discomfort or confusion. He kindly massaged the huge beast's muscles as his hand passed across the shiny coat, and my thoughts flashed unintentionally to visions of those hands massaging along my skin, the burning muscles of my legs. His rough-woven tunic stretched hungrily against his sculptured back as he pivoted at the waist to discard the brush behind him.

"Stablehand?" It was a shaky exhalation this time, belying the guileful resolution in my posture. His simmering gaze greeted mine, anticipation tingeing steamy green. Gaping, I stood, silent. A brilliant smile flashed across his face, a blinding, dissolving smile.

"Yes, Miss?" his eyebrows raised earnestly.

"Uh, stable my horse... please?" The swirling confusion and desire in my mind and my gut twisted it into a question; his limitless smile brightened, rivaling the impermanent vibrance of Apollo's mistress as her rich vermillion embers flushed the horizon with the lust of their union. The same vermillion flush he burned into my chest, my belly, my loins.

"Yes, Miss." A nod and burning heat, green and lush. He moved my oldest steed efficiently into the stall, turning him and latching the gate closed.

With supple, potent grace, he strode to the water spigot. I followed him with my eyes, smoldering tears glazing my vision, roiling emotions sticking a guttural moan in my throat. A miniscule shift of his brow and intrigued tilt of his head divulged he had heard my stifled zeal, but he continued to fill a pail with water before using the stream of cold liquid to wash his hands, smoothly chafing them together and slicking the wetness further up his arms. He carried the pail to the stalls, pouring cascades of splattering, cold liquid into the horses' buckets. Lastly, he moved to Rosalie's stall; she was disgruntled, and the sounds of bumps and kicks echoed from her space. I registered with astonishment that her agitated noises had been filtering out around us since Carlisle had been spooked; I'd been too bemused to notice. A shocked gasp drew roughly into my lungs as he reached out and placed a gentle hand on Rosalie's face, whispering quietly to her while comfortingly stroking along her cheek. As she noticeably and quiveringly settled, my body flared to life.

My nerves electrified and tingled, pulsing with a yearning rhythm. I deliriously coveted his hands calming my over-heated skin. I craved a balm and an incendiary, praying his hands could sooth and excite as his presence seemingly did.

"Ed-Edward?" The stuttering whisper danced away from my tongue before my inhibitions could snatch it back.

The pleasant smile dissolved from his countenance but did not fall away. Instead it shifted, still burgeoning with unspoken emotion, into a serious, piercing gaze. His eyes swam in liquid pools of wonder, yearning, mirth as his hand reached for me. I was far closer to his body than I had anticipated, unknowingly diminishing the space between us with my instinctive steps. His fingers fluttering around my face tickled and caressed, a lover's fingers. His thumbs settled tenderly on my cheeks as he enveloped my neck with his warm, rough hands, braiding fingers through hair. The trembling exhalations jettisoning from my mouth and the erratic staccato rhythm beating up my throat from behind my breast were embarrassing and unnerving, but I could not contain them. The natural pinkening of his luminous skin was a faint reflection of his plush, rosied mouth, and I watched it draw ever closer to my own.

When he was so near that the breath expelled from his lungs to undulate in waves of dizzying, syrupy heat over my skin and into my gulping swallows, I sensed an alluring murmur against my tingling lips.

"Yes, Bella?"

I hadn't heard the intimate, familiar name in so long. The tingling flared into numbness, a fever of ripples across my face; an incandescent green flash overwhelmed my sight as my knees folded, and all I smelled were sweet hay and a saturated forest.

My torpid eyelids fluttered as I stirred the sleepy stiffness from my limbs. Pressing my eyes closed harder, I clung to the remnants of the unearthly dream in which I had been submerged. I was still encased in the imagined warmth of Edward's sound, firm arms, his earthy scent washing over me. My down mattress was typically too lumpy and chilled, despite warmers, smelling harshly of lye soap, but here, still wrapped within the sticky remnants of this dream, I was warm and cradled, nestling deeper. His whispers caressed my ear as he softly repeated my name.

"Bella, please, open your eyes?" he quietly begged. "Bella?"

My eyes flew open, taking in my surroundings in a soporific haze. He had laid me prone, resting comfortingly in the soft piles of hay in the loft, and his arms truly were surrounding me tenderly, his hand brushing up gingerly to worry at my brow and my mouth. His eyes shadowed the path of his fingers, green sparking in hot embers to ignite against the delicate skin.

"Are you unwell?" he begged, concern darkening his glorious expression.

"No, I... I was lightheaded. I am sorry." Apologizing to him felt different; I had never done it before, and somehow it did not feel like a concession.

"Bella, I was only worried... " he trailed off, gaze darting between my eyes and my mouth as my teeth cut anxiously into my lip. Torrid desire overcame his face as his brow furrowed into a conflicted fold.

"Edward?" I begged his attention, his embrace, so much more with the intensity I leveled at him. I desired a man for the first time in my life, and my body was the only thing of myself I could freely gift.

With only a moment's hesitation, his beautiful mouth crashed hotly into mine, and I whimpered at the unfamiliar sensation. Nipping and suckling, he caused me to pant for breath only to invade my gasping mouth with his tongue. Tentatively my lips learned to dance in rhythm with his own, and I reveled in the surge of heat coursing through my being, the feel of his body pressed against mine. As he leaned further into my form, I felt his unyielding want firm at the soft swell of my hip. Emboldened by his obvious need, I reached up to thread my fingers into his coppery silk locks, and my mouth returned the hunger he delivered. Large, confident hands pressed trails of fire into my body wherever they roamed, fingering the buttons and seams of my bodice until I tore myself away.

"Please, I want to feel your hands on me," I pleaded with a wanton anguish I was unaware I possessed.

"They are," he reassured, tightening them to grip at my waist and my ribs.

"I want your hands on my skin, Edward, not my garments," I explained impatiently and was relieved when his fingers flew with lightening speed to the remaining fastenings of my bodice, making quick work of the buttons. Gently, he lifted his weight away and slipped my arms from the stiff black prison.

I looked to his face to see him mesmerized by the rise and fall of my barely contained bosom. First grazing the restraining fabric, his fingers delicately toyed with the uppermost edge and danced temptingly across milky-white bareness. A halting gasp stuttered from my mouth as a wave of gooseflesh rippled my skin, a shiver rolling down my spine. His hands worked more surely, grasping, gripping, dipping under fabric to tease.

He drew his provocative mouth to my ear, nibbling on the crimson-flushed lobe before whispering, "Bella, you are more beautiful than the rolling green hills, the trees, the sun and the moon, the most beautiful flower; I have wished for this, you here with me, wanting me. Please, tell me this is real," he pleaded.

A deep, rich sigh met his ear with my tongue as I released all the pent up heat he had slowly transferred into me. "This is real and true, Edward, and I need you to, please, make me tangible; please consume me until I can feel my flesh and blood and bone again." I punctuated my last word against his sinewy neck, pressing teeth into the thumping pulse just under marble skin.

With a guttural sound, his mouth moved frantically down my neck, painting patterns with his teasing tongue. He slowed his ministrations as he reached the swell of my pillowy mounds, reverential in his attentions. His lips caressed, his teeth biting carefully at flesh, until his elegant, strong fingers, first, and his mouth, shortly after, discovered my arousal-pinched peach buds barely freed from the corset restraining them. He lapped savagely at one whilst his fingers stroked across the other. His lips parted to suck the peak in, and his teeth closed around it to nibble and scrape, causing me to cry out with pleasure and pain and the pulse in my incited nether regions.

He continued to concentrate his lascivious mouth at my bosom while his hand traveled purposefully across the soft swell of my side and down my thigh, seeking out the still-unbuttoned slit of my safety skirt. Tucking under the thick fabric, I felt his fingers drag devilishly up my leg towards the join of my hip with only my thin linen riding trousers as an impediment. The fiery ember of his touch traced an echo of need along my skin, and the near-painful tension building in my groin and suffusing into my belly boiled over as his hand settled firmly atop my femininity, cupping his heat transferred, between my legs.

I plucked indiscriminately at the buttons of his shirt, sure now we were both entirely too clothed. His hand massaged my womanhood, as I finally pried the last button free. I tore and shoved at the material, desperate to see the manliness before me, and he chuckled a vibrating shiver into my bosom before tilting back to slip from the remaining confines of his shirt. He shifted to reposition himself, but my hand against his chest stayed his movement, his gaze licentious yet curiously concerned. Flooded with a surge of modesty, I felt a blush creep along my cheeks and down my neck to my chest. Edward followed the trail of color with a lustful smirk, and my confidence reinforced, I reached for the fastenings of my skirt, expertly releasing the weighty bulk from my narrow waist. Edward's hands replaced mine as he painstakingly unwrapped the cloth so that it became makeshift bedding beneath us both. He dragged the length of my humming body with his graceful fingers, driving more heat directly to my center. Whether the heat originated within me or was somehow being absorbed through his touch and his eyes and his kiss I could not know.

His swollen length pressed needily against me as his hands traveled up to my waist to remove my trousers. I explored the chiseled fluidity of his torso, dipping my fingers along muscles, drifting beyond his navel to brush through the hair above his waistband. My fingertips dipped tentatively behind the fabric, nails grazing hidden skin, and barely dragged across his engorged manhood, a sticky wetness painting my fingers, before he pulled slightly away, panting, and began to work the linen down my legs.

Eyes chasing cloth, his face was alight with wonder as my natural form was exposed to him. Kneeling at my side, he traced an invisible line from the inside of my ankle, along my calf, dipping behind my knee, between my thighs. A ripple of pure green fire met my eyes and rippled out through my heavy limbs as his fingers brushed my sex, parting my welcoming folds, slicking with my passion.

I reached out to tug gently at his waist, begging from beneath my heavy lids, whispering "please." Understanding my request, Edward did away with his remaining clothing unabashedly, his tumescent shaft made visible to me; the first on which I had ever laid my eyes. Everything about him was beautiful yet decidedly masculine, and this elemental part of him did not disenchant. Rather, I was not confident my body would accept his rigid maleness in all of its seemingly quite large glory in any combination. Seeing the start in my expression, Edward gave me a sweet, uneven smile and shifted to kneel over me, supported on one arm. He grasped my hand gently, pulling it toward himself, as he leaned to pepper reassuring kisses across my cheek before hovering over my ear.

"This..." he placed my hand on his throbbing manhood, curling my fingers with his to wrap around the contrast of smoothness over steal. "_This_ is all for you, has always been yours, to use or ignore as you will. I do not expect anything from you, love."

He taught my hand how to stroke his skin with his own, eventually releasing mine as I continued to administer to his enlarged want. His mouth captured mine as his fingers pressed firmly at my wetness, parting my flesh to caress mewls and moans from my throat. Edward teased up to a swollen pulse, swirling skillful fingers and rubbing a building rhythm. I panted against his lips, unintelligible sounds forming poetry around the swell of tension and heat and longing thrashing through me. His lust burned hot in my palm; he swallowed my sounds and returned them back to me in a masculine timbre. His hand quickened, fingers shifted, danced around my aching entrance. Edward's thumb continued to press and strum at my most sensitive spot while he gradually pressed fingers into my warmth. My hand slowed, fell away, overwhelmed by the sensations he brought to my desirous heat.

He stopped his sure touches, and I opened my eyes confusedly. Only then did I register my own pleas which had been echoing around us for him to take me and fill me. His features were twisted with urgent needs and a blossoming intensity which gleamed in limpid green. Shifting his knees to settle between my parted legs, his eyes searched for consent and his quivering member twitched against the juncture of my legs. Assured of the answer for which he was hunting, he gripped himself firmly and laced the rounded head up and down between my sweet spot and my opening. A pleasurable shiver shook my muscles with every pass over the sensitive button, and the tension of anticipation when he moved along my entrance was knitting a tightness in my belly.

After a few minutes more of the heavenly torture, I thrust my hips up toward him and growled delightedly. Edward crashed against my lips, and I felt the lift at the corners of his mouth as he kissed me passionately. He slowed his torturous stroke, coaxing one more shiver before directing his velvety sword down to my entrance. Without thinking, I moved my hips up and into his as he finally pushed himself into me with care.

With my cry, his groan, Edward breached my virginal maidenhead, stilling once he was fully sheathed within me. His lips whispered kisses and concern against my skin, and sooner than seemed possible, the pain was a memory and a fire was burning fast and hot in my abdomen. I rocked my hips into him, writhing my body beneath him. I undulated in arches of my spine, pressing my corsetted torso against the sculpted beauty of his masculine form. Passion flared in his eyes, and he kissed me fiercely as his hips began a pulsing rhythm against mine. Shifting more weight to his knees, Edward drew his arms under my legs. He crooked them over his muscular shoulders before lowering some of his weight back onto my body.

The resulting sensation caused me to cry out, panting, moaning, gasping, loudly as his savage staff plundered my treasure. The tension wrapped all around me was overwhelming as his body encased mine and claimed mine all at once. His thrusts became more needy, speeding and erratic. His face screwed up into a pleasurably painful expression, and moments later, with an aggressive push, Edward's seed was pulsing and throbbing into me, my name tumbling from his lips in worship.

Edward's lips found my skin again and began a pilgrimage. As he withdrew from my body, his lips and tongue and teeth tasted the glistening sheen of sweat across my breasts, down the stiff fabric corset and to the soft bend where my hip met my leg. Fingers caressed my thighs, converging on the throbbing pink skin at their apex, and he kissed to the inside of my leg, tickling the short growth at his jaw along my sensitive skin. Tasting slowly, his tongue passed ghostingly into my folds. Edward's groan mirrored mine, and his hands pressed my legs out, spreading me open before him. His tongue came out, lapping hungrily at my bundle of nerves. I shifted and squirmed with bolts of pleasure darting through my veins, surging under my skin. His muffled moans vibrated into me, earning mewls and squeals and high pitched noises. He traveled down with his tongue stroking out to taste and titillate every part of me. His tongue swirled at my opening, and a feral growl echoed back up to me.

"Bella, you are so delicious," he breathed, warm air exciting my wetness. "I love tasting myself in you."

His words spoke directly to my sex, doing much the same as his body. He resumed his task, refocusing his tongue to lave attentively at my tender nub while he pushed his fingers into me. Instantly, the pressure in my abdomen redoubled, and my hips pushed roughly into his face, my fingers gripping his hair. I was gasping, needing more air, more burn, more feeling, yet overwhelmed by the culmination of the pulsing desire and burning heat threatening to explode forth and distribute my essence in a fluttering deluge of fiery confetti.

Edward's fingers tweaked, twisted inside me, stealing my breath altogether.

I froze, stiffened, and silent. The throb in my veins now concentrated to pulse and grip around his fingers. A quiet gasp floated from my lips, and I _was_ flying apart into a thousand pieces of fiery confetti. I was fireflies against a pitch black night.

And I was buoyant and I was weightless and I was flying.

Edward crawled alongside my body, still aloft, still full of his burning heat, still shattered into tiny pieces. He kissed gently against my temple; his arms folded me close, protecting me without grounding me.

"I love you, Bella. I have always been yours to keep."

He was mine, and my life was a fantastical mystery only partially revealed, and I was his.

He was sweet hay and wet forests and calm and green heat.

And I was free.

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**a/n (the second): My beta ****Viola Cornuta was kind enough to pretty this up for me and ****Tonya (she sends her happy Birthday wishes), so I love her immensely. Well, I love her whether she is my word mistress or not, but she braved heaving bosoms this time people.**

**I don't own the Twilight stuff, but**** Tonya owns me.**


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